Sunrise — 5:19, 5:42.

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"People called her impulsive. Reckless. Even other rescuers — people who should’ve stood beside her — joined the mob.... The rescue world cannot keep cannibalizing its own."

Said a statement from KJ Farms Animal Rescue, quoted in "Mikayla Raines, Who Rescued Foxes and Other Animals, Is Dead at 30/She founded Save a Fox Rescue to care for foxes that had been abandoned or bred for their pelts on fur farms. She gained millions of social media followers along the way" (NYT).

We're told "Her husband, Ethan Frankcamp, said the cause of death was suicide."

"Mr. Mamdani’s father recalled that a teacher in Cape Town had once reported Zohran for a surprising answer to the question of what color he was."

"While the other children in the class said white, Black or colored (a term used in South Africa for people of mixed race), Zohran answered 'mustard.' 'I found it most touching,' his father recalled."

From "The Parents Who Helped Shape Zohran Mamdani’s Politics/Zohran Mamdani’s parents, a filmmaker and a professor, gave him the foundation for his run for mayor of New York. But their own political views may open him up to attacks" (NYT).

I didn't realize until I read this article that the "filmmaker mother" — big deal, I thought — made some highly regarded movies, "Mississippi Masala" and "Monsoon Wedding."

He wasn't complaining. He was cogently critiquing.

I'm reading "Donald Trump’s latest Nobel peace prize effort? DRC and Rwanda/Foreign ministers from the feuding east African nations joined the president on Friday after he complained last week that he would not receive an award" (London Times).

What a misreading! Trump is vindicated when he doesn't win the prize, especially as he racks up more achievements.

And headlines like that one also vindicate him, by the way.

How about an article that's not about his imagined effort to win the prize but on his ostensible effort to end a war? Isn't "war" the right word? Or does the London Times regard wars between African countries as "feuding"?

As Trump described it: 

One reason to say Trump didn't "obliterate" Iran's nuclear program is that the uranium is still there, even if under 200 meters of collapsed mountain.

They could mine that uranium. Is that what the "anti-obliterationists" might mean?

If that's their point, let them come out and say it clearly. Those arguing that "obliteration" did, indeed, occur would have to agree, right? Not that I think we might all just finally agree on the facts. People are so disagreeable these days.

I can't bring myself to read "Obfuscating on Obliterating" the new Maureen Dowd column, but I did search the page for the word "uranium." It wasn't there. Is she obfuscating? I'm willing to bet that the column is about somebody else obfuscating. 

I did my elaborate blog post on the word "obliterate" 3 days ago, and I'm not going to do that again. I did take the trouble to coin the word "anti-obliterationist" (The anti-obliterationists are annoying me).

And I considered doing a post about the word "obfuscate." I'm not going to do that, but looking for the word in my archive, I see that back in 2007, I wrote a post called  "Words that sound dirty but aren't": "Here's a list.... Here's an even longer list. 'Obfuscate.' Man, I say that in class all the time (when talking about the Supreme Court)...."

"A stunning 51% of Hispanic, naturalized US citizens voted for Trump over Harris, according to the Pew Research Center’s 2024 election post-mortem."

"Trump, who on the campaign trail pledged to crackdown on illegal immigration and shore up the southern border, bested Harris among foreign-born Hispanics by 3 percentage points and performed 12 points better within the demographic than he did in 2020.... The Pew Research Center analysis... surveyed almost 9,000 voters in the weeks after the 2024 election.... The president carried 15% of Black voters (up from 8% in 2020), 40% of Asian voters (up from 30% in 2020) and maintained the same 55% support from white voters he received four years earlier...."

From "Trump won more than half of foreign-born Hispanics — still would have beaten Harris if every eligible person voted in 2024 election: analysis" (NY Post).

And here's "Behind Trump’s 2024 Victory, a More Racially and Ethnically Diverse Voter Coalition/A study of the 2024 election, based on validated voters" (Pew Research Center).

"'I thought it was a great photo opportunity.' But the shutter-worthy sight quickly turned tragic when one of the bison stepped into a small part of the basin..."

"... then tried hopping out. Within a matter of seconds, the beast began teetering at the edge of the Grand Prismatic Spring — the largest hot spring in the entire park — and then fell in."

From "Bison boils to death in Yellowstone hot spring in front of tourists" (NY Post).

Also in the NY. Post: "A 14-year-old California boy walked off a 120-foot cliff in front of his horrified father — telling him he saw 'snowmen and Kermit the frog' while hallucinating from altitude sickness."

"I was struck by conservative Instagrammer Arynne Wexler’s description of liberal women as 'androgynous pixie haircut unbathed Marxist freaks in polycules.'"

"Bravo on the clever turn of phrase, Miss Wexler. Impressive use of your Ivy League education to bash polycules.... Would Wexler prefer cheating as an alternative to polyamory? Wexler, per The Post, would delete her Instagram slurs about polyamorists, the WNBA ('welfare for tall lesbians') and other targets if only she could find a husband and kids.... Let’s stop othering and demonizing relationships that are based on consent, communication and affection. Fear, loathing and misinformation aren’t a route to happiness for anyone."

Natalie Davis, who runs the online publication Polyamory Today, writes in a letter to the Washington Post. 

Davis is responding to the article "MAGA and the single girl/What do the young women of the modern right want? It’s complicated." 

Wexler is just one person who's described in the article, which tells us: "She runs a popular Instagram account where she mocks Gen Z college degrees as 'pescatarian arts with a concentration on hating white people' and calls the WNBA 'welfare for tall lesbians' — but she’d delete her account tomorrow if she could trade it in for a husband and kids."

Don't get me started on my musings about what "pescatarian arts" is supposed to mean. Both Grok and Meade resisted the nonliteral interpretation.... 

"'Believe her,' Agnifilo beseeched the jurors in his closing arguments for Combs’s defense. 'When she says to you that domestic violence is the issue, I’m asking you to believe her.'"

"This has been a pillar of the defense’s strategy: that Combs has taken responsibility for domestic violence but is not guilty of the charges he faces."

From "Diddy and Cassie a ‘modern love story,’ defense says in closing arguments/Sean 'Diddy' Combs’s defense team called the sex-trafficking case against him 'badly, badly exaggerated' as the trial nears its conclusion" (WaPo).

"When I saw her in that dress, it stopped being cold for me. It was magical."

Said the groom, quoted in "Finding Happily Ever After in a Snowstorm in June/After their wedding was spotted on a webcam, pictures of Jamie and Chris DeBruhl getting married at a mountain resort in Montana spread quickly online" (NYT)(free-access link, so you can see the photos, with the bare-shouldered bride in the snow).

"Mr. Borg Hoiby was 4 years old when his mother, Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby, a former waitress, married Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the Norwegian throne, in 2001."

"Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s other children, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, are second and third in line to succeed their grandfather, King Harald V, 88. Mr. Borg Hoiby holds no title or official duties."

From "Son of Norway’s Crown Princess Is Charged With Rape and Sexual Assault/Marius Borg Hoiby, the stepson of Crown Prince Haakon, was charged with rape and sexual assault after a monthslong police investigation that has caused turmoil for the royal family" (NYT).

So he's not a prince, but his younger brother is a prince and his younger sister a princess. I see that when he was born, his father was in prison. Wikipedia: 

Sunrise — 5:15.

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"Over the last two decades, 'The Comeback' has become something of a cult classic, and Kudrow’s depiction of Cherish — her big red hair, her earnest demeanor, her totally unique turns-of-phrase..."

"... remains a meme in present day. Earlier this year, Variety published a list titled  'The 100 Greatest TV Performances of the 21st Century,' and ranked Kudrow in 'The Comeback' at No. 4. The show, however, has never been broadly popular. HBO canceled 'The Comeback' after it premiered in 2005 because of low ratings, before bringing it back — to the surprise of the industry — for a second season nearly a decade later. The season got a rapturous response from some critics but the result was the same: The ratings were very low...."

From "'The Comeback' to Come Back/Lisa Kudrow’s critically beloved cult comedy will return to HBO next year, the network announced on Friday" (NYT).

You may remember, long ago, in September 2005, I told you "The Comeback" was my favorite TV show:

Just yesterday, re-watching the last episode of my favorite TV show, "The Comeback," I said, "Valerie Cherish is my favorite TV character, ever."

"Really? What about Seinfeld?"

"No." I thought back over all the TV characters I could remember to see if anyone meant so much to me and said, "There's only one other person I can think of: Maynard G. Krebs."

"I am very happy to be a counterpoint to the current manosphere. We’ve forgotten about philosophical and spiritual wisdom. Go back and check it out — Yoda is the strongest person in 'Star Wars.' Have we forgotten the lessons of Mr. Miyagi?"

Said Steve Burns, quoted in "Can Steve From ‘Blue’s Clues’ be a ‘Counterweight’ to the Manosphere? The beloved children’s star is starting a podcast for adults. He hopes for thoughtful conversations and a lot of listening" (NYT).

I think Burns is a sweet and calming presence, the way he pauses as if he's in a personal conversation with the viewer on the other side of the screen. That's been the stuff of children's shows since the 1950s, the illusion that the person on the screen is seeing me. I remember "Romper Room":

But the NYT dream of somebody on their side to counteract the "manosphere"? It's just sad to continually display the neediness for someone to help you defeat Joe Rogan... a man who was on your side and is still trying to be on your side.

Moments away — we'll be getting the last cases of this Supreme Court term.

The cases will be posted on the Court's website, here. And here's the live-blogging at SCOTUSblog.

Here's Grok's summary of the remaining cases — birthright citizenship, racial gerrymandering, the nondelegation doctrine, Obamacare, access to on-line porn, and parents opting their kids out of woke school lessons.

UPDATE 1: "Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts. The Court grants the Government’s applications for a partial stay of the injunctions entered below, are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue" — Trump v. CASA. This is the "birthright citizenship" case, but it did not address the issue "whether the Executive Order violates the Citizenship Clause or Nationality Act. Instead, the issue the Court decides is whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have equitable authority to issue universal injunctions." Decided 6-3 (in the usual 6-3 breakdown).

From Justice Barrett's opinion: The universal injunction was conspicuously nonexistent for most of our Nation’s history. Its absence from 18th- and 19th-century equity practice settles the question of judicial authority. That the absence continued into the 20th century renders any claim of historical pedigree still more implausible. Even during the “deluge of constitutional litigation that occurred in the wake of Ex parte Young, throughout the Lochner Era, and at the dawn of the New Deal,” universal injunctions were nowhere to be found....Had federal courts believed themselves to possess the tool, surely they would not have let it lay idle."

Addressing Justice Jackson's dissent, Barrett writes: "JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary. No one disputes that the Executive has a duty to follow the law. But the Judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation—in fact, sometimes the law prohibits the Judiciary from doing so. See, e.g., Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803) (concluding that James Madison had violated the law but holding that the Court lacked jurisdiction to issue a writ of mandamus ordering him to follow it). But see post, at 15 (JACKSON, J., dissenting) ('If courts do not have the authority to require the Executive to adhere to law universally, . . . compliance with law some-times becomes a matter of Executive prerogative'). Observing the limits on judicial authority—including, as relevant here, the boundaries of the Judiciary Act of 1789—is required by a judge’s oath to follow the law. JUSTICE JACKSON skips over that part. Because analyzing the governing statute involves boring 'legalese,' post, at 3, she seeks to answer 'a far more basic question of enormous practical significance: May a federal court in the United States of America order the Executive to follow the law?' Ibid. In other words, it is unnecessary to consider whether Congress has constrained the Judiciary; what matters is how the Judiciary may constrain the Executive. JUSTICE JACKSON would do well to heed her own admonition: '[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound by law.' Ibid. That goes for judges too."

UPDATE 2: Kennedy v. Braidwood rejects the Appointments Clause challenge to the U. S. Preventive Services Task Force. The members of the task force are deemed "inferior officers," thus not needing appointment by the President and Senate confirmation. This one is 6-3 in an unusual way. Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson join the majority opinion written by Kavanaugh (and also joined by Roberts and Barrett). The dissenters are Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch.

UPDATE 3: FCC v. Consumers' Research — "The universal-service contribution scheme does not violate the nondelegation doctrine." Another 6-3 the unusual way — with a dissent from Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch.

UPDATE 4: Mahmoud v. Taylor, 6-3, the usual way. "Parents challenging the Board’s introduction of the 'LGBTQ+-inclusive' storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt outs, are entitled to a preliminary injunction." Justice Alito writes for the majority:

The Board of Education of Montgomery County, Maryland (Board), has introduced a variety of “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks into the elementary school curriculum. These books—and associated educational instructions provided to teachers—are designed to “disrupt” children’s thinking about sexuality and gender. The Board has told parents that it will not give them notice when the books are going to be used and that their children’s attendance during those periods is mandatory. A group of parents from diverse religious backgrounds sued to enjoin those policies. They assert that the new curriculum, combined with the Board’s decision to deny opt outs, impermissibly burdens their religious exercise. 

Today, we hold that the parents have shown that they are entitled to a preliminary injunction. A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses “a very real threat of undermining” the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 218 (1972). And a government cannot condition the benefit of free public education on parents’ acceptance of such instruction. Based on these principles, we conclude that the parents are likely to succeed in their challenge to the Board’s policies....

I added the boldface. The school was so out front in its desire to reprogram children. They must have been pious believers... or at least people who felt called to pose as pious believers. 

UPDATE 5: Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, 6-3, the usual way, upholding the Texas law that restricts access to on-line porn. How do you exclude minors without burdening access for everyone? Here, the state required age verification. "But adults have no First Amendment right to avoid age verification. Any burden on adults is therefore incidental to regulating activity not protected by the First Amendment. This makes intermediate scrutiny the appropriate standard under the Court’s precedents." And the law "advances important governmental interests unrelated to the suppression of free speech and does not burden substantially more speech than necessary to further those interests." 

Kagan writes in dissent: "[I]f a scheme other than H. B. 1181 can just as well accomplish that objective and better protect adults’ First Amendment freedoms, then Texas should have to adopt it (or at least demonstrate some good reason not to). A State may not care much about safeguarding adults’ access to sexually explicit speech; a State may even prefer to curtail those materials for everyone. Many reasonable people, after all, view the speech at issue here as ugly and harmful for any audience. But the First Amendment protects those sexually explicit materials, for every adult. So a State cannot target that expression, as Texas has here, any more than is necessary to prevent it from reaching children."

UPDATE 6: The racial gerrymandering case — Louisiana v. Callais — will be reargued. Justice Thomas, alone, dissents: "These cases also warrant immediate resolution because, due to our Janus-like election-law jurisprudence, States do not know how to draw maps that 'survive both constitutional and VRA review.'"

"Plenty of Jews Love Zohran Mamdani."

The headline for a Michelle Goldberg column. Excerpt:

“His campaign has attracted Jewish New Yorkers of all types,” wrote Jay Michaelson, a columnist at the Jewish newspaper The Forward. The rabbi who runs my son’s Hebrew school put Mamdani on his ballot, though he didn’t rank him first. And while Mamdani undoubtedly did best among left-leaning and largely secular Jews, he made a point of reaching out to others....

So it has been maddening to see people claim that Mamdani’s win was a victory for antisemitism.... Ultimately.... New York’s Democratic primary wasn’t about Israel.... 

The attacks on Mamdani during the primary were brutal, but now that he’s a national figure, those coming his way will be worse. His foes will try to leverage Jewish anxieties to smash the Democratic coalition.... But don’t forget that the vision of this city at the heart of Mamdani’s campaign — a city that embraces immigrants and hates autocrats, that’s at once earthy and cosmopolitan — is one that many Jews, myself included, find inspiring....

Earthy.  

I was moved to unearth every "earthy" in the 21-year archive of this blog. They're all quotes of other people. I've never once used the word (except for one instance, now corrected, where I clearly meant to type "earthly" ("I didn't think you would be terribly sad to see that Robert Blake has left the earthy scene")).

Found poetry. Place of finding: spam file.

"I think you would prefer the human race to endure, right?"/"Uh............"/"You’re hesitating"/"Well, I don’t know. I would....... I would....."

"There’s so many questions implicit in this"/"Should the human race survive?"/"Yes.... but I also would like us to radically solve these problems. And so it’s always, I don’t know, yeah — transhumanism. The ideal was this radical transformation where your human, natural body gets transformed into an immortal body. And there’s a critique of, let’s say, the trans people in a sexual context, or, I don’t know, a transvestite is someone who changes their clothes and cross-dresses, and a transsexual is someone where you change your, I don’t know, penis into a vagina. And we can then debate how well those surgeries work. But we want more transformation than that. The critique is not that it’s weird and unnatural, it’s: Man, it’s so pathetically little. And OK, we want more than cross-dressing or changing your sex organs. We want you to be able to change your heart and change your mind and change your whole body. And then Orthodox Christianity, by the way — the critique Orthodox Christianity has of this, is these things don’t go far enough. That transhumanism is just changing your body, but you also need to transform your soul and you need to transform your whole self. And so............................"

It's Peter Thiel, responding to what one might think were easy questions from Ross Douthat, on the new episode of Douthat's podcast, here, at Podscribe.

Go to 00:37:32 to experience Thiel's freakishly long hesitation when Douthat has just asked if he'd like humanity to survive. And I love how he takes the concept of "trans" and runs with it.

Even though Thiel's cogitations wander into Christianity, he doesn't mention The Transfiguration, in Matthew 17. There, Jesus is "transfigured":

Sunrise — 5:15.

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"Because you — and I mean specifically YOU, the press corps — because you cheer against Trump so hard, it's in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump..."

"... because you want him not to be successful so bad, you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes, you have to hope maybe they weren't effective, maybe the way the Trump administration has represented it isn't true. So let's take half truths, spun information, leaked information, and then spin it, spin it in every way we can to try to cause doubt and manipulate... the public mind, over whether or not our brave pilots were successful. How many stories have been written about how hard it is to, I don't know, fly a plane for 36 hours? Has MSNBC done that story? Has Fox? Have we done the story how hard that is?... There are so many aspects of what our brave men and women did that — because of the hatred of this press corps — are undermined because you people are trying to leak and spin that it wasn't successful. It's irresponsible...."

"The American regime entered into a direct war because it felt that if it did not enter, the Zionist regime would be completely destroyed. But it did not gain anything from this war."

Said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, quoted in "Iran’s Khamenei Makes First Public Comments Since Cease-Fire With Israel/Supreme leader strikes defiant tone in a video statement, after not being heard of or seen publicly in days" (NYT).

"Centrifuges at the Fordo uranium enrichment plant in Iran are 'no longer operational' after the United States attacked the facility with bunker-busting bombs, Rafael Grossi, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said..."

"... on French radio on Thursday. Inspectors from the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, have been unable to gain access to the nuclear sites since the strikes. Mr. Grossi told Radio France Internationale in an interview that while evaluating the damage from the strikes using satellite images alone is difficult, given the power of the bombs dropped on Fordo and the technical characteristics of the plant 'we already know that these centrifuges are no longer operational.'... In the interview... Mr. Grossi declined to say how far Iran’s nuclear program had been set back by the strikes. 'Perhaps decades, depending on the type of activity or objective,' he said, echoing comments made by Mr. Trump this week at a NATO summit in the Netherlands...."

From "Centrifuges at Fordo ‘No Longer Operational,’ U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Head Says/Rafael Grossi told French radio that there was 'no escaping significant physical damage'” after Washington dropped bunker-buster bombs on the Iranian facility" (NYT).

"Supreme Court allows states to cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood."

WaPo reports.  Free-access link.

At issue for the justices was whether a provision of the federal Medicaid Act allows individual Medicaid patients to sue to obtain care from their provider of choice.... Several justices during oral argument seemed eager to provide clarity to help lower courts determine when a statute simply confers a benefit to an individual and when it goes further, empowering those individuals to sue to enforce that benefit or right. The Supreme Court has typically set a high bar for allowing lawsuits against the government, seeking to shield public officials from liability....

Speaking of "breasts like genetically modified grapefruit and behemoth buttocks bursting from a leopard-print thong bikini"...

... see Tina Brown's description of Lauren Sánchez in the first post of the day... before I saw that, I came close to buying this crazy bathing suit...

Facebook thought I might be interested in that. What does Facebook know about my skin and my aversion to sunscreen and my life in the shade?

The solid color full-body swimsuits are paradoxically brazen — especially the white one — and I had easily decided on leopard skin, even before I went out running this morning and — at 5:18 — admired the subtle camouflaging of the toad:

Look how hard it is to see the outline of the little beast against the pebbles and dirt. And that's what I'd like you to think about me if I ever go to the beach in a bathing suit again.

 

Photo by Meade, August 14, 2023, Great Sand Bay.

***

Well I, see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box... bikini... full-body swimsuit....

"Blown away by the massive ordnance penetrators that have phallicized our world, female political stars seem to have disappeared off the map."

"We were promised Mamala and instead we got Mountainhead.... Why is mighty-voiced Michelle Obama relegating herself to that sappy podcast with her brother? Why are we supposed to admire 44-year-old former New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern, once idolized for her brave gesture of donning a hijab after a 2019 terrorist attack on a Christchurch mosque, for drippily dropping out in January 2023 because she found politics 'pretty unrelenting.'... And Gretchen 'Big Gretch' Whitmer [has]... now come out from behind the folder, but still… Meanwhile... Liz Cheney... now describes herself on X as 'proud rodeo mom, soccer mom, baseball mom, hockey mom, constitutional conservative'—in that order. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski... gives a full-throated waffle at the suggestion of daylight between her and the rest of her insane party. 'There is some openness to exploring something different than the status quo,' she said. To the barricades!"

Writes Tina Brown.

I'm seeing a lot about the Jeff Bezos wedding, but how do we know he's really getting married?

There are motivations to put on this big show that are separate from any reasons to enter a marriage in the legal sense.

Consider this: "The embarrassing truth Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez haven't revealed about their $20m 'wedding'" (Daily Mail)(reporting that a Venetian official supposedly said no registrar had been appointed for the ceremony).

And here's the NYT: "What to Know About the Wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez/The second marriage for both is taking place in Venice, Italy, under a shroud of secrecy and amid a swarm of speculation": "Italy has a variety of rules surrounding marriage rites, which can involve religious ceremonies, often performed in Roman Catholic churches. The Sánchez-Bezos wedding, however, will be nondenominational, likely of a ceremonial nature."

What I want to know about that couple is why, with all their money, they have, both of them, engineered their face into that post-human fright mask?

Why would the wedding be any less fake than the faces?

And here's Tina Brown: 

The Jeff Bezos-Lauren Sánchez (circa $56 million) Venice-sinking nuptials, tying up every tender on the Grand Canal (and 90 private jets expected), is the big beautiful buster bomb of high-net-worth exhibitionism. Now that the 55- year-old bride Sánchez has proved that landing the fourth richest man in the world requires the permanent display of breasts like genetically modified grapefruit and behemoth buttocks bursting from a leopard-print thong bikini, she’s exuberantly and unapologetically shown that the route to power and glory for women hasn't changed since the first Venetian Republic.

*** 

Sailin’ round the world in a dirty gondola/Oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola!

Sunrise.

5:16:

5:15:

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Donald Trump, AOC, and Mamdani are all from Queens. Is there something about the culture/speech patterns of Queens that is political magic?

That's a question I asked Grok early this morning (and posted on X).

You might want to quarrel about how much each of these characters is really from Queens before comparing their style. 

I think the one who most deserves the "from Queens" designation is Mamdani, even though he was born in Uganda.

Feel free to read my chat with Grok — which includes details about the connections each of the 3 has to Queens, an effort to describe what distinguishes the people of Queens, and a search for other celebrities who might be quintessentially Queens —  here.

JD Vance's elegant digital rhetoric.

JD Vance just threw up the MIDDLE FINGER live on national TV.

“In D.C., they have this thing where, I think it means we’re number one, all the pink-haired people throw up this sign…” proceeds to flip off the camera

You can’t make this up. The Vice President of the United… pic.twitter.com/PPqlLHHLrl

— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) June 25, 2025

Trump's press conference at The Hague.

This is a great press conference. I've listened to it but don't have a transcript to quote yet.

ADDED: "Mark Rutte, the NATO Chief, he called you 'daddy' earlier.... Do you regard your NATO allies as kind of like children?"

🚨 LMAO! Marco Rubio absolutely LOST his composure in the background as Trump is asked about NATO Secretary General calling him "daddy." 🤣

REPORTER: "Mark Rutte, the NATO Chief, he called you 'daddy' earlier...Do you regard your NATO allies as children?"

RUBIO: 🤣🤣🤣

TRUMP:… pic.twitter.com/eJEtjQqjeL

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 25, 2025

If we take "obliterate" literally, it means to cause to disappear.

The media seem to be overeager to undercut Trump's accomplishment by saying that he said the word "obliteration" but there's actually — possibly — something left. 

From this morning's news: "Trump reveals Israel sent agents to Iran’s bombed nuclear sites to confirm their 'total obliteration.'"

He seems determined not to abandon his word of choice, "obliteration."

How literally do we take "obliteration"? Really hardcore literalism would require that the thing be wiped from human memory. "Ob-" means against and "littera" means letter. Strike out the text. It's what Orwell's "memory hole" did. 

So how have we been using the word "obliterate" in recent years? Here's what I've noticed in the past 2 decades, just 11 examples taken from this blog's archive.

1. Quoting Hillary Clinton: "If [Obama] does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me, money is drying up, he’s outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads, my husband’s going crackers and party leaders are sick of me, how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama?"

2. Quoting Camille Paglia: "Democrats are doing this in collusion with the media obviously, because they just want to create chaos... They want to completely obliterate any sense that the Trump administration is making any progress on anything... I am appalled at the behavior of the media...."

3. Quoting Trump: "As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!)."

Let's talk about Zohran Mamdani. I'd avoided even making a tag for him, but times have changed.

BREAKING: Andrew Cuomo has conceded meaning former rapper and socialist Zohran Mamdani will win the New York City Democratic primary.

The 33-year-old state rep has bold new plans for New York City, including city owned grocery stores.

Mamdani has a controversial past, including… pic.twitter.com/9wmHXdaCwL

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 25, 2025

I'll start the conversation with this. The Democratic Party is in big trouble! It has the old guard and the possibly too crazy progressives. Yesterday's primary was a test. 

"'A completely unserious and selfish move,' one House Democrat told Axios on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about a colleague."

I'm reading "Democrats fume at 'unserious' Trump impeachment vote" (Axios).

128 Democrats sided with House Republicans to block Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) from bringing a Trump impeachment vote, including most of Democratic leader...

Green's five-page measure argued that Trump "disregarded the doctrine of separation of powers by usurping Congress's power to declare war."...

Make a list of all the Presidents who should have been impeached if things like what Trump did to Iran is a basis for impeachment.  

Green told Axios in an interview he doesn't have "one scintilla of regret" about forcing the vote, adding that it "does not in any way cause me any degree of consternation to be criticized."

When last I noticed Al Green, he was interrupting Trump's address to Congress and waving a cane at him. 

Rep. Al Green (D-TX) getting rightly removed from President Trump’s speech really illustrates the demise of the Democrat Party.

They are out of ideas. They can’t offer anything positive for America so they try to ruin it.

Al Green needs to be censured and hopefully expelled. pic.twitter.com/CV15kVsz9x

— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) March 5, 2025

Did that register any degrees on the consternation meter?

He's a man without consternation. He's a man who doesn't know how to sell an accusation.

AND: In Greener pastures:

OMG!!! 😂😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/a1PbaFTjpP

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 24, 2025

Sunrise — 4:51, 5:12, 5:16, 5:44.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

Who votes and who doesn't vote when it's incredibly hot?

I see it's going to be record-breakingly hot in New York City today — 100 degrees.

And today is the NYC primary: "The contest has narrowed into a two-man sprint between Andrew M. Cuomo, the state’s scandal-plagued former governor, and Zohran Mamdani, an assemblyman and democratic socialist with a short track record, with a crowded field of nine rivals trailing behind. Polls suggest the outcome is a tossup" (NYT).

That's a stark choice — whether to go out at all and, if so, Cuomo or Mamdani. I would think a lot of people would find both men unappealing and, of this group, the it's-too-hot decision is highly attractive. Then there are the people who actually long for Cuomo/Mamdani. Of this group, is it the Mamdani type or the Cuomo type who stand up to the challenge of facing intense physical discomfort for their man. 

I see the Cuomo group as pragmatic and the Mamdani group as passionate. Not sure how that interfaces with heat. The heat is personal, specific — about you, right now. In that light, I'll predict Cuomo prevails. But he needs to prevail with more than 50% or that "ranked-choice" voting could throw the nomination to Mamdani. 

"That appeared to suggest that the two sides... want the truce to hold."

NYT: 

Mr. Netanyahu’s office said that Iran had fired missiles after the cease-fire took effect, and that the Israeli military had retaliated by striking a radar system near Tehran. Iran’s military denied violating the cease-fire, and Mr. Netanyahu’s statement indicated that Israel’s retaliation was limited. That appeared to suggest that the two sides — both of which claim to have prevailed in the conflict — want the truce to hold. In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump said that Israel “is not going to attack Iran” and that “all planes will turn around and head home.”

From "Live Updates: Shaky Cease-Fire Takes Hold, Under Pressure From Trump/President Trump lashed out at both Iran and Israel for launching attacks after his cease-fire announcement. Iran denied violating the truce and Israel’s retaliation appeared limited, suggesting that the deal remained intact for now." 

Look what they've done to the Virgin of the Macarena.

Here's the article, in the London Times.

Comments from the Brotherhood of the Macarena: “This isn’t her; this isn’t the Virgin of Seville. It’s sad. My heart is about to burst out... They should have left her as she was.” And: “I came to see her because everyone in my family has been crying all day about it.”

I know, you're thinking about that dance, the Macarena. Or are you thinking about the "Monkey Christ"?

"They basically are 2 countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing."

JUST IN 🇺🇸🇮🇷🇮🇱: US PRESIDENT TRUMP DOES REALLY HARD AT ISRAEL. 🥶 #Iran #Israel #Trump pic.twitter.com/P77w3PqNLM

— RAJAT (@IRajatJain) June 24, 2025

"ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES."

Writes Trump, just now, at Truth Social. 

Background: "Live Updates: Trump Lashes Out at Israel and Iran as Fragile Truce Is Tested/Mr. Trump suggested that both Israel and Iran had continued fighting despite a cease-fire that both had agreed to, adding to the uncertainty over the truce he abruptly announced Monday night" (NYT).

The fate of a truce announced by President Trump that went into effect early Tuesday hung in the balance, as the Israeli military said Iran had fired another missile barrage and vowed to retaliate.

The claim from Israel’s military came just hours after the country had joined Iran in agreeing to the truce, spurring cautious hopes for an end to 12 days of unprecedented warfare between the adversaries, and as both sides seemingly claimed victory in the conflict. Iran’s military denied firing missiles after the cease-fire went into effect, according to Iranian state news outlets — adding to the uncertainty....

UPDATE: An hour after the post quoted above, Trump posted:

ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly “Plane Wave” to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

And immediately after that:

IRAN WILL NEVER REBUILD THEIR NUCLEAR FACILITIES!

Sunrise — 5:33.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments EXCEPT Iran. Go one post down for that.

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"CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE! It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE (in approximately 6 hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions!)..."

"... for 12 hours, at which point the War will be considered, ENDED! Officially, Iran will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 12th Hour, Israel will start the CEASEFIRE and, upon the 24th Hour, an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR will be saluted by the World. During each CEASEFIRE, the other side will remain PEACEFUL and RESPECTFUL. On the assumption that everything works as it should, which it will, I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran, on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, 'THE 12 DAY WAR.' This is a War that could have gone on for years, and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn’t, and never will! God bless Israel, God bless Iran, God bless the Middle East, God bless the United States of America, and GOD BLESS THE WORLD!"

Writes President Trump, on Truth Social.

ADDED:

.@VP reacts to the Israel-Iran ceasefire agreement announced by President Trump: "The President without ... having a single American casualty obliterated the Iranian nuclear program. We are now in a place where we weren't a week ago." pic.twitter.com/a5G88FfKuE

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 23, 2025

"There's an enormous amount of love in Israel for, for your president, for Donald Trump. And it's love that he's, he's earned by, by his actions."

"He, he did a tremendous thing not only for the Jews of Israel, he did a tremendous thing. And for the people of Israel, he did a tremendous thing for the people, the Jewish people. I mean, I think that what we have been doing over the past 10 days in Iran is making it clear that the Jewish people will destroy anybody who tries to destroy us. We, when we say never again, we mean it. And when the United States stepped up and joined Israel in this operation yesterday under President Trump, the United States said, not only do we respect the fact that you are doing what you have to do, we're going to stand with you and we're proud to be your ally. And that is something for all Jews in Israel and throughout the world, just is an extraordinary boost. It's, it's an, it's an amazing thing to have a friend like that — to have a friend like the United States of America."

Said Caroline Glick, the International Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister of Israel, to Ben Shapiro, on today's episode of his podcast, "Trump's MASTERSTROKE: What Comes Next?!" (Podscribe).

"The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to deport migrants to countries other than their own, pausing a federal judge’s ruling..."

"... that they must first be given a chance to show that they would face the risk of torture and letting the administration send men held at an American military base in Djibouti on to South Sudan. The court’s brief order gave no reasons and said the judge’s ruling would remain paused while the government pursues an appeal and, after that, until the Supreme Court acts. The court’s three liberal members issued a lengthy dissent."

The NYT reports.

"He has a photo of his late friend Hunter S Thompson and a doll of Donald Trump climbing into a cage with the American flag inside it — the 'horrible cage,' he explains of the US presidency."

"On the coffee table I spot a magnifying glass, a book on Jack the Ripper and an ashtray with 'Hello C***y' written on it. This rented house is where Depp had been living for months but he knows that he has to move. Somebody of his infamy simply cannot live near Carnaby Street without getting stuck indoors. 'I can be isolated and happier than a clam,' he explains. 'But I don’t get out much. I’m stuck with my thoughts; just thinking, writing or watching weird shit on YouTube. It can’t be healthy... But there is never any way to hide, and I just feel uncomfortable causing this weird form of attention I do, because I’m really shy.' How is that compatible with his career? 'Well, fame is the last thing I ever chased...'... Does he miss having the children about? 'Oh man, my kids growing up in the south of France in their youth?... I was Papa. I cannot tell you how much I loved being Papa.... Then, suddenly, Papa was out the window. I was Dad. But Papa was awesome and I’m getting old enough for Papa to possibly come back. Some motherf***er’s going to have to call me Papa!'"

From "Johnny Depp: ‘I was a crash test dummy for MeToo’/Over a rambling four-hour session with Jonathan Dean, the actor opens up about the Amber Heard trials, his painful childhood, 40 years of fame and the friends who turned their backs on him" (London Times)

"But the fact of the matter is, I had expected by now you would hear harsher rhetoric and seeing more missile attacks. "

"Why would the Iranians be downplaying the amount of damage done? Well, they're probably wildly embarrassed about this. Here was the national treasure of Iran, right? The nuclear program was the symbol of its strength and its resistance to the United States. The caretakers of the nuclear program, both the mullahs and the military, and the civilian president and administration had no higher responsibility than protecting this as the ultimate defense for the Iranian state. And here they've now lost that ability, at least for a while. And there's another possible explanation... which is they could be downplaying it so that it doesn't force their hand into a massive response, one that would put them on an escalation ladder with the United States...."

Said David Sanger — on today's episode of the NYT podcast "The Daily," "The U.S. Bombed Iran. Now What?" (Podscribe) — answering the question "What has been the response from the Iranians so far?"

Do you want your car out there working for you — picking up strangers and driving them around — when you're not in it supervising the goings-on?

Elon Musk says Tesla’s fleet will be part Uber, part Airbnb

Tesla owners can easily add their vehicles to the autonomous fleet through the app when not using them.

They’ll earn money—often more than their monthly payment, while Tesla takes a small cut pic.twitter.com/j0tD7V3Onl

— Dima Zeniuk (@DimaZeniuk) June 22, 2025

It took me a moment to understand "They’ll earn money—often more than their monthly payment." I confess my first thought was "monthly payment" for what? Then I realized that people were being prompted to go into debt to buy cars that could work for them — robot slaves. Why stop at one if they're all expected to earn more than "their" car-loan payment? But you can see Musk smirking about the money he will make if people buy multiple Teslas in pursuit of the dream of a fleets of Teslas that crowd the streets of their town in the desperate, unending search for dollars to fend off the repo man.

Things I asked Grok: 1. What's the plot of the movie "Repo Man"? 2. Propose a remake of "Repo Man" where the cars are self-driving Teslas that people have gone into debt to buy because they believed in the AirBnB business model, recently proposed, where the car earns money for you while you're not even in it and people are hoping the cars will earn enough to pay off the loan they took to buy it, which was successful until supply way exceeded demand and thousands of car owners were caught short. 3. Would Elon Musk like this movie?

Grok answers: here.

"Lefty upstart Zohran Mamdani has leapfrogged over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the city’s ranked choice Democratic primary for mayor..."

"... according to a stunning new poll released Monday. In its hypothetical initial round of voting, Cuomo’s lead shrinks to 3 percentage points, with 35% of likely Democratic voters supporting him compared to 32% for Mamdani and 13% for city Comptroller Brad Lander, the Emerson College Polling/Pix 11/The Hill survey found.... [S]ince no one garners the more than 50% of the vote needed to win outright, the ranked choice system kicks in. That means that even if a voter’s first choice is eliminated in successive rounds of calculations, their other picks could still be in the mix and emerge as the eventual overall winner. Mamdani finally surpasses Cuomo in the eighth round [!!!!!] of the simulated ranked choice voting — 51.8% to 48.2% — in the latest poll conducted June 18-20...."

I'm reading "Shocking poll shows Mamdani overtaking Cuomo in NYC’s ranked choice primary" (NY Post).

"Kilmar Abrego Garcia will likely be placed in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody due to an immigration detainer the government has on him, despite a Tennessee judge on Sunday ordering his release in his criminal case..."

"While U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes' on Sunday denied the government's motion to detain Abrego Garcia, she acknowledged that if released, 'there is no suggestion that the action taken by the government will be anything other than detaining him in ICE custody pending further removal proceedings.' In her 51-page order, Judge Holmes said the government failed to prove there is a 'serious risk' that Abrego Garcia will flee or that he will obstruct justice in the case. Holmes also said the government's evidence that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13 'consists of general statements, all double hearsay' from cooperating witnesses. Holmes said Abrego Garcia 'has no criminal history' of any kind and said that his 'reputed gang membership' is contradicted by the government's own evidence that was presented during a hearing two weeks ago.... 'Even without discounting the weight of the testimony of the first and second male cooperators for the multiple layers of hearsay, their testimony and statements defy common sense,' Holmes said...."

ABC News reports.

The ABC headline seems designed to cause a hasty reader to think ICE would be violating the judge's order: "ICE will likely detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia despite judge's motion to have him released."

The judge didn't make a motion. The judge denied the government's motion but, as you see above, said "there is no suggestion that the action taken by the government will be anything other than detaining him in ICE custody pending further removal proceedings."

And weren't there also earlier versions of this story that made people think the judge was requiring the government to set Abrego Garcia free? Yes, here.

"Mr. Trump had been under pressure from the noninterventionist wing of his party to stay out of the conflict, and was having lunch that day..."

".... with one of the most outspoken opponents of a bombing campaign, Stephen K. Bannon, fueling speculation that he might hold off. It was almost entirely a deception. Mr. Trump had all but made up his mind to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, and the military preparations were well underway for the complex attack. Less than 30 hours after Ms. Leavitt relayed his statement [that he would make a decision about whether or not to strike Iran 'within the next two weeks'] he would give the order for an assault.... Mr. Trump’s 'two weeks' statement was just one aspect of a broader effort at political and military misdirection that took place over eight chaotic days, from the first Israeli strikes against Iran to the moment when a fleet of B-2 stealth bombers took off from Missouri for the first American military strikes inside Iran since that country’s theocratic revolution in 1979...."

From "Shifting Views and Misdirection: How Trump Decided to Strike Iran/When Israel began its assault on Iran, President Trump kept his distance. But within days he was on a path that led to an extensive bombing mission aided by political and military ruses" (NYT).

Sunrise — 5:33.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments EXCEPT Iran. Go one post down for that.

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"It’s not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!"

Wrote President Trump, on Truth Social.

"We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program," said JD Vance.

Quoted in "Vance says U.S. 'not at war with Iran, we're at war with Iran's nuclear program'/President Donald Trump said Saturday night that the U.S. had dropped bombs on three Iranian nuclear sites, the first time the U.S. has directly attacked Iran" (NBC News).

I'm interested in that rhetorical device: "We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program." 

I believe it's called paradiastole — or redescription. Other examples: 

George W. Bush, 2003: "We’re not occupying Iraq. We’re liberating it."

Barack Obama, 2013: "This is not a war on terror. It’s a campaign against specific networks like al-Qaeda."

Bill Clinton, 1999: "This is not a war. It’s a humanitarian intervention."

Benjamin Netanyahu, 2014: "We’re not fighting the Palestinian people. We’re fighting Hamas.”

Ronald Reagan, 1980s: "We’re not waging war against Nicaragua. We’re supporting freedom fighters."

"I am having a hard time understanding the following Logan Pearsall Smith quote: 'People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.'"

"Googling didn't help much other than whose quote it is. What exactly does the above quote mean?"

Wrote someone at the English Language & Usage website, 12 years ago.

I'm reading that because I was reading — not living — this 2017 New Yorker article: "Philip Larkin and Me: A Friendship with Holes in It": "I remember him one day snatching from my mantelpiece a bookmark, on which was inscribed Logan Pearsall Smith’s remark 'People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.' He threw it down in a little fit of anger, protesting that nothing is more important than life."

These days, someone who couldn't even understand the quote — perhaps someone new to English and mystified by "is the thing" — would probably ask A.I.

I talked to A.I., which is not living, and I said: Understanding the quote (and the love for or objection to it) on a deeper level requires you to come to terms with the question whether you are not living when you are reading.

And then, getting into my A.I.-induced flow, I said: Smith is making a joke out of the implication that to read is not to live. Presumably other people, like Paul's grandfather, in "A Hard Day's Night," say that those who are reading are not living. Instead of fighting with that assertion, Smith says he'd rather read. That's a cheeky response. But it infuriates Larkin. 

"As a gay man I applaud this decision. The court may be acting in bad faith, they may be hostile to gay rights, but..."

"... this ruling will help protect gay kids and gender non-conforming kids from this insane gender ideology that suggests that they may have been born in the wrong bodies if they don't fit some retrograde heterosexual gender role. You can't argue on one hand that gender is 'fluid' and on the other that it is somehow fixed in small children who have yet to experience puberty. This is madness, especially as we know these medical procedures lead to a lifetime of medical issues and a shorter lifespan. Only an adult can make these decisions for themselves."

Writes John02116 in the comments section to the Megan McArdle column, "The ACLU bet big on a trans rights case. Its loss was predictable. A Supreme Court ruling shows trans advocates failed to see the fragility of the liberal consensus" (WaPo)(free-access link so you can see the big disconnect between the column and the comments).

An even more strongly worded comment comes from JR Colorado:

"Operation Midnight Hammer."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Dan “Razin” Caine describes OPERATION MIDNIGHT HAMMER.

Iran’s nuclear facilities got nailed.pic.twitter.com/tx1bQo2525

— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) June 22, 2025

How does it happen that the lawyer addresses the judge as "honey"?

NEW: Lawyer is speechless after he accidentally calls a Colorado judge "honey" while arguing whether or not a violent s*xual assault counts as one act or can be broken into multiple acts.

So awkward.

Judge Terry Fox was seen holding back laughter during the incident.

Lawyer:… pic.twitter.com/6FJQyIiPds

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 21, 2025

I can see at the link that one theory is that something about the judge or the kind of argument they were having felt so much like talking to his wife that the endearment he uses on his wife popped in on its own.

Another guess would be that he's one of those men who use "honey" on women when he's putting them in their place. It's a diminishment, not an endearment. 

But what a screwup! He not only let the word slip out, he expended a lot of his time — his client's time — apologizing and attempting to recover.  

"At the moment, perhaps the greatest drama in the world of popular history is..."

"... the question of whether the 89-year-old Robert Caro can finish the fifth and final volume of his Lyndon Johnson biography, a titanic undertaking that has consumed 50 years of his life. His personal papers, some of which he has already given to the New York Historical, so far constitute 150 linear feet of file boxes, and one wonders how many more prodigious biographies Caro could have produced over those 50 years if a chatbot had been able to synthesize some portion of that material for him. Then again, without a mania to touch every single source himself, and to pour the rigor of all that relentless reading into his prose, an A.I.-assisted Robert Caro would not have been Robert Caro at all."

From "A.I. Is Poised to Rewrite History. Literally. The technology’s ability to read and summarize text is already making it a useful tool for scholarship. How will it change the stories we tell about the past?" (NYT).

What Trump posted on Truth Social 3 hours before his post telling us "We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan."

Cocky deflection:

I caught a glimpse of my own obituary.

In the email this morning, the Google alert I've had on my name for decades brings this:

I send that image to Meade (along with the link to the website the alert wants me to click), and this conversation follows: